More To Do

 

I let my gardens go fallow this year – partially because I couldn’t bring myself to garden and somewhat to see what would grow without attention.

Now into July, the garden is a mass of weeds.  Garlic mustard is holding sway in the apple tree bed.  I really intend to pull it our before it takes over from the Trilliums.  The Solomon’s Seal in that same bed needs cutting back.  The hostas are lush.  Echinacea is blooming despite the lack of care. Goldenrod has reseeded itself all over. The glorious red Daylily has spread and is blooming like mad.  Rudbeckia is popping up both in the back and the front yards.  In the veggie beds, quack grass is in a race to cover any tiny veggies that the squirrels haven’t dug up or the rabbit hasn’t bitten off.

The pond remnants are almost gone. What’s left is a fairly large hole with two or three very large boulders and three plastic boxes full of water put there to take up space in the stream iteration of the pond. Also exposed from the former pond/stream is quite a bit of rubber pond liner and the cushion liner underneath it.  I need a knife that will cut through the exposed liner.  I’m thinking that the knives that carpet layers use might be the knife to use on the liner.  Maybe Home Hardware or Irvine Home Decorating would have such a tool.

Taking out the three basket-like plant boxes is a bigger problem.  I’m thinking that the contractor that reduced the pond to a stream used them  as filler. They are full of old water and some stones and are very heavy,  It will take some work to get them out.

Those plastic baskets and the two very large boulders still in the hole are all that I intend to take out now.  Those jobs and the task of cutting out any exposed liner will end the job of clearing out the old pond.  When they are done, I can then move the earth from the high point of the former pond out over the garden to make one large fairly level planting area..

In my dreams of redoing the space of the former pond, I see an area with some large boulders and some smaller river rocks spread haphazardly over the area with little patches of Sedum Acre growing among them.  I thought it would take about a year to accomplish this.   Now I’m looking at over two years.  I always think that I can find a happy worker to help, but I’ve not found a worker willing to tackle the job.

Pond Rocks

 

I definitely need some rock management.   I have many rocks from our old pond to find homes for. The pond was raised at the back to allow us to have waterfalls and lined from bottom to top with large rocks and boulders and surrounded by more boulders.  (Is there a difference?) That wondrous pond had to go when the great-grandchildren arrived next door.  We pulled as many rocks and the liner as we could near the pump to make a reservoir and turned the pond into a stream lined with rocks and with two waterfalls.  The children were safer and the birds loved it.

Last year we decided to demolish the stream when Michael was unable to tend to the intricacies of a pump and the ubiquitous leaks. We were left with many big rocks and some river rocks.  Many of the rocks are in that reservoir area and the wall section we made to raise the garden level high enough for a waterfall.  I advertised last year that I was giving away some rocks with pond experience and got rid of quite a few especially those rocks surrounding the stream and leftover wall from the old pond,  but there are still some hidden deep in the bed of the old pond.  Where to put them is a problem. Some of them will just have to stay there.  I’ll use a crowbar to punch holes into the old lining to allow some drainage and let that be it.

Living with Wildlife

Now I sympathize with my friends who look for help in discouraging deer.  Those are my lucky friends who live outside the city.   I'm a city person

At one time, I was enamored of wildlife in the city:  squirrels, chipmunks, skunks, rabbits, but now that I am trying to grow food in my garden, I look at such wildlife visitors as pests rather than guests.  Each year at seed time, the battle is on.  There is no way I can teach my wildlife that what is growing in the boxes is not for them. 

This year I covered the rows of beans with plastic mesh but the mesh was not wide enough for the bed.  Putting two rows of mesh down just left a thin opening and squirrels and chipmunk shimmied between the layers.  The pests found a fun way to get to the beans.  Imagine== a game with as many beans as you can eat as a prize!  A complete planting disappeared overnight. 

When the Gardener Goes

 

I didn’t garden much at all this season.  Life kept me extra busy in spring and early summer.  I managed to do a few pots and plant some seeds and that's about it.  Later in the summer when I did have time, the garden had frankly gotten away from me.  So my garden looked after itself this year.

Some good things happened:  the coneflowers and rudbeckias spread out and made a grand show from July to September, the morning glories growing from seeds from last year's plants were super  from mid August on although the colour reverted to the species purple, the geraniums in the pots outdid themselves, the bit of chasmanthium we left at the front had its best show yet, and the huge hosta ‘Sum and Substance’ is magnificent. 

Some bad things happened:  I didn’t attend to the rascally trumpet vine and am going to have a real fight on my hands next spring.  The squirrels decimated the plants in pots -- especially the sweet potato vines.  Yellow sorrel shot up between the pads of the prickly pear!  Several hostas have overgrown their spots.  And most annoying, Creeping Campanula has invaded the front.

What amazed me the most is how fast nature will take over a patch.  In just one season, my garden looks like I moved away and left it. 

Is that what happens when the gardener dies?